EUROPE-008 - museum specimen
León, Castilla y León
Spain - Castilla y Leon - Europe - Iberia
Play / practical
zumbador / bramadera Spanish
Source term: ZUMBADOR (Bramadera)
Spanish names for the bullroarer, both built from the sound it makes: bramadera from bramar, to roar or bellow like the wind, and zumbador from zumbar, to buzz or hum.
Etymology. `Zumbador` is a Spanish sound-name for a buzzing or humming object; `bramadera` is the Spanish rhombus/bullroarer term used in the Joaquin Diaz object label. (medium confidence)
A bullroarer of holm-oak wood and leather from León, in the Fundación Joaquín Díaz collection: a flat blade seven by nine centimetres on a cord that brings the whole to 89.5 centimetres, with a slit cut into the back and a central hole. In Spanish the instrument is named twice over for its sound — bramadera, from bramar, to roar like the wind, and zumbador, from zumbar, to buzz. Where the Iberian folk record speaks of the type, it belongs to children and to the fields: in Basque villages the same whirled slat was spun through Lent and at harvest to scare sparrows off the crops.
Tiene una hendidura en el reverso y un agujero central.
It has a slit on the back and a central hole.
Fundación Joaquín Díaz collection, identifier 67
- Object
- Folk bullroarer in the Joaquin Diaz collection; wood and leather, total length 89.5 cm with cord; wooden piece 7 x 9 cm.
- Function
- A sound-toy of the bramadera/zumbador family, named for the roar (bramar) and buzz (zumbar) it makes; elsewhere in Iberia the type is a children's toy and seasonal bird-scarer (Donostia 1952; Barandiarán 1974). For León itself no use was set down.
- Map confidence
- medium - Representative Leon city/province anchor; source localizes to Leon/Castilla y Leon rather than a findspot.
- Source location
- Instrument identifier 67